ASSERT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Assert

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/əsˈərt/ Listen

verb

Assert v. t. (past & past part. asserted; pres. part. asserting)

To affirm; to declare with assurance, or plainly and strongly; to state positively; to aver; to asseverate. "Nothing is more shameful... than to assert anything to be done without a cause."

To maintain; to defend. (Obs. or Archaic) "That... I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men." "I will assert it from the scandal."

To maintain or defend, as a cause or a claim, by words or measures; to vindicate a claim or title to; as, to assert our rights and liberties.

To assert one's self, to claim or vindicate one's rights or position; to demand recognition.

Synonyms: To affirm; aver; asseverate; maintain; protest; pronounce; declare; vindicate. To Assert, Affirm, Maintain, Vindicate. To assert is to fasten to one's self, and hence to claim. It is, therefore, adversative in its nature. We assert our rights and privileges, or the cause of tree institutions, as against opposition or denial. To affirm is to declare as true. We assert boldly; we affirm positively. To maintain is to uphold, and insist upon with earnestness, whatever we have once asserted; as, to maintain one's cause, to maintain an argument, to maintain the ground we have taken. To vindicate is to use language and measures of the strongest kind, in defense of ourselves and those for whom we act. We maintain our assertions by adducing proofs, facts, or arguments; we are ready to vindicate our rights or interests by the utmost exertion of our powers.

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Etymology of 'Assert'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Assert" Quotes from Famous Books

... masters. Under thin and dubious claims by right of discovery, through the immense energy and daring of her explorers, the heroic zeal of her missionaries, and not so much by the prowess of her soldiers as by her craft in diplomacy with savage tribes, France was to assert and make good her title to the basin of the St. Lawrence and the lakes, and the basin of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. From the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, through ...

— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... very well worth considering whether the United States should not reestablish the 31st of December in Manila, and assert that we hold title to the Philippines not only by the victories of the fleet and armies of the United States, but by the favor of Alexander VI, whose bull the Spaniards disregarded after it had grown venerable with three centuries of usage. We quote a Spanish historian who colors his chapters ...

— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... encouraging. I lay down, then, as one of the canons for testing a poet's greatness, this, "Is he sane?" and purpose applying the canon to Robert Browning, giving results of such application rather than the modus operandi of such results. I assert that he bears the test. No saner man than Browning ever walked this world's streets. He was entirely human in his love of life for its own sake, in his love of nature and friends and wife and child. ...

— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... you that what is called [1] "the intricate variety in husbandry" [2] presents no difficulty. I use a phrase of those who, whatever the nicety with which they treat the art in theory, [3] have but the faintest practical experience of tillage. What they assert is, that "he who would rightly till the soil must first be made acquainted with the nature of ...

— The Economist • Xenophon

... Psychological Materialism, if carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in theological Atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry More, Nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus. I do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny or actually disbelieve a God. For, in very many cases, this would be at once an unmerited compliment to their reasoning, and an unmerited reproach to their faith."—Lectures, vol. i, ...

— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

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